Happy New Year from Namibia! Biking through wild animal country

We fell asleep by 8pm New Years Eve to the sounds of hippos braying in the river, but celebrated at 10am the next morning (midnight in BC). We have biked up the west side of the Okavango delta, and east through the Caprivi strip in Namibia now, and are later today heading out to a little island where the Zambezi and Chobe rivers come together, right next to where the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia meet.

Yesterday was the first day that we passed through a national park and weren't allowed to ride through, so we had to put our bicycles in the back of a pickup truck through the park. Every other game reserve or park, the folks at the gate all say "aren't you afraid of wild animals?" but let us go anyways. We have heard that lions and other cats don't really hunt during the day. The one time we had to fix a flat inside a park (there are a lot of thorns here), I was definitely looking over my shoulder, though! There is definite incentive for me to keep up with Nelson, too. I've seen enough nature documentaries to know that it is the smaller, weaker, slower one straggling at the back that gets eaten first.

We did see two elephants from our bicycles one day, about 30m away. While we were stopped and taking pictures, a park warden drove up. Our conversation went something like this and, in the end, it was still a little unclear to me whether or not this was an unsafe distance.

Park Ranger: "Hi, how are you?"

Me: "Good, how are you?"

PR: "Are you okay with these animals here?"

Me: "I think so. Are we okay with these animals here?"

[pause]

Me again: "Is it safe?"

PR: "Is it safe?"

Me: "Are we too close?"

PR: "Are you too close?"

Me: "I don't know. Is it okay that we're here?"

PR: "Is it okay that you're here?"

Me: "I don't know. Is it?"

PR: "Is it?"

[pause]

PR again: "How fast can you go on those bicycles?"

We haven't had to try to outrun any wild animals yet, but I did learn how fast we could go when a mean dog came running out of a yard one day barking like he wanted to eat us. Nelson described my legs as "a spinning ball of adrenaline charged terror". I couldn't believe that I had outrun both the dog and Nelson until I realized later that Nelson had slowed down to put himself between me and the dog. Who says feminism killed chivalry?

Besides the elephants and the animals we saw in Pilanesberg, we have now also seen warthogs (with their babies that are so ugly, they're cute), springbok, klipspringer, water buffalo, turtles, enormous ant hills, lizards, donkeys, monkeys and their babies, baboons (in the middle of the road), a baby crocodile, and lots of funky birds.

I also learned that not only does my name mean something in Spanish, it also means something in Zulu! It signifies "to wait" and is quite a common name. Anyone who has ever had to wait for me, which is pretty much all of you, might find this quite fitting.

I find myself making profound statements on a fairly regular basis, like "Wow, it's really sandy here in the Kalahari desert", or "Man, Africa is hot in the summer!". In order to beat the heat, we are getting up at 4am and starting cycling at 5:30am, at first light. We have usually gone 50km by ~8:30am and 100km before noon. It is the 100+ days that are hard, because we end up riding in the afternoon. Luckily, it is the rainy season, so it is often cloudy in the afternoon which makes it bearable. Botswana and Namibia are also very flat, which is nice after hilly South Africa. The road surfaces have all been paved and smooth, except a few sandy access roads to lodges.

This last week of cycling has definitely been our favourite so far. People seem happy and busy and generally don't pay much attention to us, except to give big smiles and waves from the fields. We've seen lots of people using oxen to plow their fields and bent over doing farmwork. It looks like really hard work and puts what we're doing into perspective - it may seem hard at times, but it is entirely by choice and we can stop whenever we want and have access to luxuries on a regular basis. Most of the "camping" here is on the sites of posh lodges, so we have access to the swimming pool, showers, restaurant, etc. Several nights now, though, we haven't been able to make it to the next town with established accommodation, and are hesitant to wild camp because of the animals, so we have camped at the local police station, which has been really nice. We always meet lots of nice men and women who work there, as well as from the town.

Kilometers to date: 1663

We are loving the reaction that we get from people when we tell them where we've come from and where we're going. I wish we had on film all the times people said that what we're doing is impossible! I guess they don't know about possibilism.